Fw-190A-5, Kommodore Anton Mader, JG54 spring 1944

[81-er]

Right, decision made, I’m going to build the Fw-190A-5 piloted by JG54’s Kommodore Anton Mader. The RLM 02/RLM 71 combo appealed to me as it's a bit different (lower aircraft in the image below):

 

 

I’ll be using the Eduard kit, but the Overtrees version:

 

 

An overall shot, I reckon there’ll be enough of these in the GB that I don’t need to show every sprue:

 

 

Decals will be from Xtradecal, I may or may not use some aftermarket bits as well, but I haven’t decided that yet.

 

James

[Graham Boak]

This is appears to be an example of much discussed JG54's experimental colour schemes.  However it is not the light 02 but a dark brown.  Ken Merrick was privileged enough to study an unrestored example of one of these (not this one) in a Russian store.  He said the colours were the prewar 61/62/63, and believed that 62/63 became the later 81/82.   (If with a more restricted range of pigments.)  Either way you are looking at a richer brown and a lighter green.

 

71/02 was used on very early Fw.190s, as the standard fighter camouflage of the time, but was replaced by 74/75 pretty soon.

[81-er]

Thanks for the heads up Graham 👍 I'll go hunting for some alternative paint

 

James

[Graham Boak]

You may have some wiggle room.  Merrick was stepping on some fairly significant toes with these comments, as there were/are a lot of (perhaps over-inflated) theories about the colours.  There's always someone willing to claim that air forces were eager to grab supplies of captured paint and slap them happily on their own aircraft.  (Strange that the British or US forces never did this.)  There was certainly something very different about JG54s colours at one stage - or indeed at more than one stage in its history!

[81-er]

It's always good to have a better perspective from someone with more knowledge of the subject, thank you Graham. I've also got the A-5 Profipack kit, and the B scheme in that is another JG54 machine from 1943, in 61/62/70 over 76. I'm guessing that's probably more likely 61/62/63 from your post above then?

 

James

[Graham Boak]

Pass.  If JG54 really were experimenting with prewar colours on behalf of the High Command, then the regular prewar options didn't include a good dark green so retaining one of the 70/71 would be an option.  Why 70 not 71?  I don't see them including the light grey-green. and adding a dark green might be more convincing - but the Russians were using green and black so they might have been inclined to try the darker 70.  However, there were a number of variations so quite possibly a number of different combinations.  The brown might even have been the later desert version.

 

Again, Merrick only saw one example, which may not have been widely representative.  Despite all the attempts, I don't think that the matter has been entirely resolved and doubt that it ever will.

[Marklo]

Welcome to the GB I do like that colour scheme.

 

Mire than any other combatant the Germans made use of captured material. I bought the book captured aircraft in Luftwaffe service and if it could fly it was used so I wouldn’t be surprised if they also experimented with captured paint.

[81-er]

Thanks gents  Some alternive paints have been ordered, I see some experiments in my future

 

James

[Touvdal]

19 hours ago, Graham Boak said:

Pass.  If JG54 really were experimenting with prewar colours on behalf of the High Command, then the regular prewar options didn't include a good dark green so retaining one of the 70/71 would be an option.  Why 70 not 71?  I don't see them including the light grey-green. and adding a dark green might be more convincing - but the Russians were using green and black so they might have been inclined to try the darker 70.  However, there were a number of variations so quite possibly a number of different combinations.  The brown might even have been the later desert version.

 

Again, Merrick only saw one example, which may not have been widely representative.  Despite all the attempts, I don't think that the matter has been entirely resolved and doubt that it ever will.

 

I know that there has been a lot of discussion on the JG 54 colors, (there is always a color discusion 😎)

 

But my personal wiev is that the colors used by JG 54, were based on mixing standard RLM paint to obtain a good color to get camoflage in the local area.

 

You can get a long way with mixing RLM 04 (yellow) RLM 21 (White) RLM 22 (Black) RLM 23 (red), RLM 24 (Blue) RLM 25 (Green) into RLM 70/71/02. And all these would be standard stock at the Geschwader paint shop.

 

Cheers

Jes

 

 

Edited January 20, 2023 by Touvdal

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

Do not understand why my greeting from yesterday didn't take. Accept my apologies and welcome to the build. 

[Graham Boak]

Mixing colours seems to be a lot of faff. It is something very familiar to modellers and hobbyists in general, but busy ground crews will have rather more important things to do with their time.  I think it a good rule to stop and think twice (or more) before making this assumption.  Especially when similar colours are already available in stores.  Merrick's observations have considerably more credibility.  

[81-er]

I finally made a start on this yesterday. The fuselage internals have had primer, then either RLM 02 or RLM 66 in the appropriate areas (both Mr Hobby). The gear bay has been built up bar the roof in the lower wing, and that has had some RLM 02 and so have the bay roof parts on the upper wings:

 

 

You’ll have to excuse the gear bay being partly obscured there. I’ve also ordered some Master guns to avoid the issues others have had with the cannon barrels catching on things.

 

Wheels (Eduard resin for the main wheels, kit for the tail wheel) have had a coat Tamiya Rubber black and just need their black centres painted. Main gear legs and gear bay roof have RLM 02:

 

 

The cockpit tub has been mostly assembled (I’ve gone for using the kit plastic) and painted in RLM 66. The Ips, stick, and seat have also had a coat of RLM 66. The seat cushion has had a coat of Vallejo leather:

 

 

The next stage will be getting stuck into the detail painting. I’m only going to use some PE belts in the cockpit, no other AM there. I’ve got some Anyz instrument decals that I’ll use to populate the bezels.

 

I didn’t actually report back on my colour experiments, but here’s one of my paint mules painted with MRP RLM 61 & RLM 62. These look reasonable compared to colour images of JG54 aircraft (not perfect, but we can’t be sure the colours in the photos are perfect either), so I’ll be running with these as the colours I use:

 

 

James

[jackroadkill]

Excellent!  It's good to see you getting stuck in, James.

[franky boy]

Nice start James. Good to see this one underway. 

 

James

[mick]

good start

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

The colors look good to my old Mk.I’s 👀

[81-er]

I managed to get quite a bit done yesterday. The exhausts got a coat of Alclad exhaust manifold, and were then installed in the fuselage & lower wing. I didn’t do anything more with them as there’s very little visible when they’re in place:

 

 

 

Trying to replicate the coloured bezels (and strangely they’re not moulded on the lower IP), I whacked some light blue, red, and yellow into the appropriate recesses with a cocktail stick, trying to get some over the edge of the recess, with varying degrees of success:

 

 

I then broke out my Anyz instrument decals (a very useful product) and put a selection of them on the IPs. Time consuming and a little frustrating at times, but worth the effort:

 

 

 

The cockpit tub has had some details painted, a drybrush, and a wash of Citadel Nuln Oil, and I’ve added a couple of the Anyz placards just to add some interest:

 

 

All that’s standing between me and a fully finished cockpit now are the PE seatbelts, which have been fighting a little. I’ll finish those next time I’m at the bench.

 

Following the lead of some of the other builds here, the engine front was sprayed with Alclad black primer, given a drybrush of Tamiya flat aluminium, and a light wash with Citadel Agrax Earthshade to give a hint of some oil residue:

 

 

The leather edge on the coming is being painted:

 

 

The bellows on the main gear legs have been painted, and I’ve fitted the scissor links:

 

 

The Master barrels arrived, so I’ve painted the cannon ends and installed those in the gear bay. That’s also had a wash of Agrax Earthshade, though I think I may have gone to heavy on that seeing the photos:

 

 

 

And then the wings were assembled:

 

 

 

My next jobs will be sorting out the seams on the wings, and those belts. That’ll be next week though, as I’m off to spend a few days with my girlfriend.

 

James

[jackroadkill]

You're really making progress now, James.  It's all looking very good indeed.

[81-er]

Thanks Owen  It really does fly together once you get going. The horizontal tailplanes and the cowl front are all glued together as well, just awaiting the fuselage closeup before they can be fitted. I wouldn't be surprised if this is seeing paint before next weekend

 

James

[modelling minion]

Just catching up with this one James.

Excellent work so far and I am very interested to see how the colours look when you get that far.

 

🇺🇦

[81-er]

Thanks Craig 👍 You and me both!

 

James

[jackroadkill]

1 hour ago, 81-er said:

I wouldn't be surprised if this is seeing paint before next weekend

Ideal!

[81-er]

I finally managed to get the belts to an acceptable point. Not as good as I’d hoped, but they are at least attached without gigantic amounts of superglue excess now. I had to repaint the seat cushion after clearing up the mess from my first attempt at fitting them. Not my finest cockpit, but it’ll do:

 

 

After that, the fuselage was buttoned up:

 

 

I found I needed to add a couple of bits of sprue to spread the lower fuselage out to avoid massive gaps with the wing. Even so, there’s some nasty seams to deal with, almost certainly my own fault. Here’s where we are now though:

 

 

My next task is going to be sorting out those seams. I may be some time…

 

James

[jackroadkill]

Well done, James - you're nearly finished!

[81-er]

Optimistic, but thank you. There's a LOT of filling, sanding, rescribing, and re-rivetting in my future, never mind the paint 🤣

 

James